


Four Hundred Billion Suns

by hannelore



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Double Drabble, Gen, not-so-final frontiers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:55:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25322734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannelore/pseuds/hannelore
Summary: Paul can't forget the time Lorca pushed him to make 133 jumps. But he also can't forget what happened before he entered the spore drive chamber. (Spoilers for the end of Season 1, title inspiration from Carl Sagan)
Relationships: Gabriel Lorca | Mirror Gabriel Lorca & Paul Stamets
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14
Collections: Multifandom Drabble 2020





	Four Hundred Billion Suns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NetchSlayer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NetchSlayer/gifts).



He always returns to the map. Red and blue dots and circles on a screen, multiple universes and lifetimes. When it's quiet in Engineering, Paul calls it up, but it never feels the same without Lorca there. He can conjure up the same giddy feeling he felt then, the impossible _possibilities,_ but no one looks at him with that space-exploring hunger as Lorca did. Some come close, but he privately thinks only someone with such a maddening and literally destructive drive could potentially understand.

Paul angrily dismisses the screen. He knows Lorca was using him, toying with Paul's desire to push past the risk multiple jumps would take. But that doesn't stop him from remembering the way Lorca stood next to him and how out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lorca shake his head as if he too was grasping the wonder of the infinite beauty of space.

Paul brings up the map again. So much left unexplored. Maybe, just possibly, the _other_ Gabriel Lorca was just as obsessed as Paul was? He had to be. Lorca had known Paul wasn't just "a polite scientist." They were risk takers and perhaps, one day, Paul would find him.


End file.
